Frequency identification and asteroseismic analysis of the red giant KIC 9145955: fundamental parameters and helium core size

TL;DR

This study analyzes Kepler data of the red giant KIC 9145955 to identify oscillation modes, determine the helium core size, and derive fundamental stellar parameters through asteroseismic modeling.

Contribution

It provides detailed mode identification and constrains the helium core size using mixed modes, advancing asteroseismic analysis of red giants.

Findings

Helium core mass is 0.210 ± 0.002 M_sun.

Helium core radius is 0.0307 ± 0.0002 R_sun.

Acoustic radius τ_0 is 0.494 ± 0.001 days.

Abstract

We have analyzed 18 quarters of long-cadence data of KIC 9145955 provided by \emph{Kepler}, and extracted 61 oscillation frequencies from these high precision photometric data. The oscillation frequencies include 7 $l = 0$ modes, 44 $l = 1$ modes, 7 $l = 2$ modes, and 3 $l = 3$ modes. We identify $l = 0$ modes as p modes and $l = 2$ modes as p-dominated modes. For $l = 1$ modes, all of them are identified as mixed modes. These mixed modes can be used to determine the size of the helium core. We conduct a series of asteroseismic models and the size of the helium core is determined to be $M_{\rm He}$ = 0.210 $\pm$ 0.002 $M_{\odot}$ and $R_{\rm He}$ = 0.0307 $\pm$ 0.0002 $R_{\odot}$. Furthermore, we find that only the acoustic radius $\tau_{0}$ can be precisely determined with the asteroseismic method independently. The value of $\tau_{0}$ is determined to be 0.494 $\pm$ 0.001 days. By combining asteroseismic results and spectroscopic observations, we obtain the best-fitting model. The physical parameters of this model are $M$ = 1.24 $M_{\odot}$, $Z$ = 0.009, $\alpha$ = 2.0, $T_{\rm eff}$ = 5069 K, $\log g$ = 3.029, $R$ = 5.636 $R_{\odot}$, and $L$ = 18.759 $L_{\odot}$. In addition, we think that the observed frequency F39 (96.397 $\mu$Hz) is more appropriate to be identified as a mixed mode of the most p-dominated.